State of the Union Show Preview

Jan 24, 2011

RUSH: If you want to do a drinking game for the State of the Union show tomorrow night I have two words and you will be plastered inside the first 20 minutes: ‘Investments’ and ‘civility.’ If you consume a shot of quality adult beverage every time you hear Obama talk about investments or civility, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll be unable to pay attention to that thing.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: A pre-analysis of the State of the Union show that is tomorrow night. A bunch of friends of mine are hectoring me saying they’re not gonna watch it because they don’t have to, because they know I have to. You know, I can farm some things out, you know, I can pay people to watch The View. I can pay people to watch the sludge that’s on cable channels at night. But I have to watch the State of the Union show. I have to watch it. And I can’t do the drinking game along with you people. All I can do is suggest it. But I’m serious, whatever your favorite adult beverage is, have some of it standing by and every time you hear the word civility or investments, let fly.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, for tomorrow night: Obama’s State of the Union show kicks off a little after nine o’clock in order to give the media time to tell us what he’s going to say, and then Obama comes in. I have a way… I know a lot of you don’t want to watch this. A lot of you know that we will watch it, and if there’s anything salient, we’ll pass it on to you. I’m like you: Who wants to sit there and listen to somebody lie for an hour and 15 minutes? As an example, let’s go back to January 27th of last year, 2010. Here is Obama in the House chamber and the State of the Union show. It’s a brief bite, but here’s what he said was his focus.

OBAMA: Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010, and that’s why I’m calling for a new jobs bill tonight!

RUSH: Well, I don’t know if he got his ‘jobs bill,’ but he got unemployment compensation extension bills, he got stimulus bills — and in the State of the Union he’s going to call for more spending, called ‘investments.’ Where are all the jobs? Where are all these platitudes? Which, by the way, do not mask his actions. But here’s my alternative for you. Tomorrow night at nine o’clock in the Golf Channel is episode three of The Haney Project starring me. I happen to know… I knew that the show was gonna debut on January 11; therefore I knew that the third episode would come two days after the AFC and NFC Championship Games.

So when we taped this episode last fall, I wore my Steelers jersey, ’cause I figured, ‘I want to make myself look prescient. I’ll wear my Steelers jersey in the Haney show which will air two days after the Steelers win the championship game and go to the Super Bowl,’ and it worked. It worked. I also have to tell you that Hank Haney was not pleased that I showed up in a Steelers jersey. Seriously, he was not happy. He thought it represented my not taking the game seriously. It’s not ’cause he’s a Cowboys fan. It’s ’cause he thought… (laughing) He thought I wasn’t taking it seriously by showing up in a jersey.

‘No, we got a TV show here, right? We’re trying to have some fun.’ So, at any rate, I think it’s tomorrow night’s episode where I show up in the Steelers jersey, at least for part of it. Now, although I’m on the cutting edge of societal evolution and I pretty much know, particularly when it’s involving Democrats and liberals what they’re gonna say before they say it, and I know what they’re gonna do before they do it, and here is evidence of exactly what I know: All this talk about ‘investments’ in the State of the Union show, that’s what all the new spending is gonna be called Tuesday night. That’s what the new spending is gonna be called, and here’s a media montage from this morning on the use of the word ‘investment.’ Now, we know Clinton popularized this back in the early nineties. They’re going back to the playbook and trying at all over again. Here is the media setting everybody up for what already know is coming on Tuesday night.

BRZEZINSKI: President Obama’s speech will call for investments in key areas like education, infrastructure, and technology.

GUTHRIE: …what the White House calls ‘investments.’

GOLER: …investments in things like education.

WALLACE: …investments in education, in research.

LIASSON: …investments in things like education infrastructure and science and technology.

FERRE: The president will also promote ‘investments.’

KRUGMAN: …a more business friendly way to sell more public investment.

ACOSTA: …new investments to create jobs.

SCHUMER: …investments that will help us grow in the future.

RUSH: How many decades have we been ‘investing’ in all of these things and all we’ve got to show for it is a nation in debt. We have no winning performances, leading performances in our education system. In fact, practically everything we’ve been ‘investing’ in is falling apart. Everything we’ve been specked money on, there’s no progress to show. Which gets me to the point: Obama’s platitudes, which is what he’s full of, do not mask his actions. When he speaks tomorrow night, he’s gonna be using these poll- and focus group-tested catchphrases like ‘investments,’ ‘civility,’ and so forth. While he’s speaking, while he’s speaking tomorrow night, his branch of the federal government will be shutting down oil rigs.

His branch of the federal government will be shutting down coal mines. His branch of the federal government will be massively expanding regulation over the means of production through CO2 and the centralization of financial activity. It’s already underway but it’s gonna be continuing. It’s gonna be going on. While Obama speaks with his platitudes had been his administration will be regulating the Internet through the FCC. While he’s speaking tomorrow night… This is all action he’s already taking, it’s already underway but while all that’s going on his speech will not reflect any of it. The judiciary has said that he does not have the power to regulate the Internet via the FCC. They’re doing it anyway.

While he’s speaking his platitudes tomorrow night, the price of food and energy will continue to increase due to government policy. Jobs will be shipped off to Red China, not because of free trade but because of Obama’s policy of smothering domestic capitalism — which, in effect, subsidizes the ChiCom economy. Now, Obama’s not a new face on the scene anymore. He actually has a record. His record is a disaster. The Obama record has been, and his presidency has been a disaster. He likes to talk about ‘saving the nation’ from the next Great Depression, and I’ll bet he repeats that lie again tomorrow night: ‘Saving the nation from the next Great Depression.’

There was not going to be another Great Depression. He used the recession to advance his political and economic agenda — and since those agendas are destructive of enterprise and opportunity, he has pushed the nation into a deep rut. And all of this will have happened, and we will be getting deeper and deeper into that rut while he speaks his platitudes tomorrow night. Now he says having saved the nation from disaster he’s ready to focus on jobs. Gone is the $1 trillion stimulus, gone are shovel-ready jobs, gone is no-more-8%-unemployment, gone are all the green jobs, gone is what came before, if you dare to hold him to his word. Yet he points to his actions as having saved the nation. The nation is still in the process of being destroyed.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Of course he doesn’t mean this stuff about Reagan. This is all part of this image, this faux move to the center. There’s no move to the center. It’s just verbiage. For crying out loud — ‘hell’s bells,’ as they say — I just cited all the societal, cultural, economic damage this guy has inflicted. I’ll be glad to run through it again if you want, but none of all this vast improvement that he’s talking about is taking place. Everything is getting worse, despite all the spending, and he wants to spend even more. But this business about Reagan is particularly offensive to me. If you go back to his first book, the autobiography, Dreams from My Father, by Barack Soetoro, page 54:

‘In 1983, I decided to become a community organizer. There wasn’t much detail to the idea; I didn’t know anyone making a living that way. When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did, I couldn’t answer them directly. Instead, I’d pronounce on the need for change: change in the White House where Reagan and his minions were carrying out their dirty deeds, change in the Congress, compliant and corrupt, change in the mood of the country, manic and self-absorbed. Change won’t come from the top, I would say. Change will come from the mobilized grass roots. That’s what I’ll do, I’ll organize black folks. At the grass roots. For change. ‘

Now, Obama was either deceitful in this book about how much he hated Reagan all his life or he’s being deceitful now. I’m gonna play it safe and say that he has been both. But this USA Today op-ed, this story about Obama loving Reagan? Greatness, study of Reagan? All that is is an admission that this bunch, this bunch on the left knows how popular Ronald Reagan is to this day, and by embracing Reagan they seek to make people believe that Obama is not this leftist extremist, but rather a centrist. All this is about trying to get these precious independents back that he lost, the Democrats lost in the November elections. He doesn’t mean any of this. None of his words match the actions. None of words match the deeds that have taken place here.

The price of food and energy will continue to increase due to his policy. Jobs are gonna be shipped off to the ChiComs. And, look, again: He’s not a new face on the scene. He can’t say that he’s come from a background that number knows, a wonderful orator, a great, articulate speaker, a brilliant mind, all that rot. No! He’s got a record now, and it’s one of disaster. Like this business again of trying to save the nation from the next Great Depression — and he’ll repeat that lie again tomorrow. He’ll talk about how we were that close to it and he brought us back from the brink with investments and we need more investments. So now that he ‘saved’ the nation from disaster, he’s ready to finally focus on jobs, even though that was the focus last year in the State of the Union.

He’s gonna focus on jobs? But gone is the $1 trillion stimulus. Gone are the shovel-ready jobs. Gone is no more he promised than 8% unemployment. Gone are all the green jobs. Gone is all that came before, if you dare to hold him to his word. Yet he points to his actions as saving the nation — and while he says that, his actions are in the process of destroying us the nation, by any and every measure. He’s been a disaster, and not just domestically. The ChiComs and the Russians are on the move. Iran proceeds with its nuclear program slowed only by Israeli intelligence and scientists and a computer worm.

Obama doesn’t even talk about human rights anymore. When’s the last time he spoke about genocide in Africa? North Korea? They’re plowing ahead. You people on the left, Obama has abandoned his position on Guantanamo and military trials, and he gets praised for it from you people! (chuckles) Isn’t that odd? It took him becoming president to realize that terrorists need to be held offshore and that they should be tried outside our cities and civilian courts. He’s now to be praised for finally recognizing the obvious after demagoguing the issue? Oh, yeah, because praise is all that the left can muster for Obama. Praise is all that the White House can do, the media.

That’s all they can do. Do you remember what the actual name of Obama’s Porkulus bill is? It’s called ‘The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,’ and that ‘investment’ was supposed to ‘save create at least three million jobs’ by the end of last year. We were supposed to have an unemployment rate down to 8%. Look how that turned out. So tomorrow, at the State of the Union, he’s gonna be trying to sell us on re-reinvesting. Spare yourself the torture, spare yourself the tension, spare yourself the angst, and just watch me on The Haney Project on The Golf Channel. Episode three is tomorrow night at nine Eastern.

Let me just ask you: It’s been two years now since Obama has been president. Is America stronger? Is America freer? Is America better since the regime took over? Is the world safer or freer? What is it? No, no, no. We are not stronger, we are not freer, and we are not better since Obama. Nor is the world. What is Obama’s vision for the country? I mean, we know what it is, can he even state with clarity what his vision is? Even when he’s lying about it, can he state what his vision is? When he cites the Declaration of Independence, half the time he rewrites it to exclude the crucial words about God.

When he talks about the Constitution (which is rare) it’s only in the context of what he wants it to say, not what it actually says. When he talks about free markets, can you think of anything he’s done to promote capitalism or private property rights? Nnnope. And how about last week, Obama celebrated abortion by heralding the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. What else would you call it but celebrating abortion? His is just a bunch of propaganda — and it is mush, and we’re gonna get more of it — and the reason you’re gonna get frustrated to no end if you watch it is because the media (and I’m sure people on our side, too) are gonna listen to the speech and they’re going to laud it.

It’s gonna be Slobber City 2, with everybody fawning. ‘Awww, this is the second best speech of his career,’ the first being, of course, the pep rally out in Tucson. Sorry, the memorial out in Tucson. ‘Brilliantly delivered, brilliantly written! Woooow. When Obama’s good, there’s nobody better! Listen to that oratory. Listen to that articulation. Listen to that intelligence just overflowing the cranial cavity.’ Nobody will pay attention to the substance — and if they do, even that’s gonna be a bunch of propaganda. Because while all of these platitudes are flowing from the oral cavity of the president, economic destruction and loss of individual liberty and freedom via federal executive branch fiat will be taking place right before our very eyes, although under the cover of darkness.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: State of the Union show tomorrow night, and from Nile Gardiner — once again in the UK media, this is the Telegraph newspaper. ‘Barack Obama’s State of the Union address could be a big government disaster.’ Now, before we get to the details of Mr. Gardiner’s piece, I want to play you an audio sound bite of Ronaldus Magnus from his inaugural address January 20th, 1981. For all of you who are… I don’t know how many of you have read Obama’s op-ed in USA Today about Reagan — Reagan great, Reagan this, Reagan that — Obama cites Reagan a lot and he’s citing him now because he wants to convince people he’s moving to the center, this phantom move to the center. He’s moderating his liberalism, moderating his tone in order here to show he heard you at the election. He heard the people.

I want to play this short little 45-second excerpt from Reagan and ask any of you to find any similarities between what you know of Obama (and even what Obama has said) and Reagan here from January 20th, 2011.

REAGAN: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem. (applause) From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government ‘for, by, and of the people.’ Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of this together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

RUSH: This is Reagan coming out of what was a prelude to Obama. This is coming from the Jimmy Carter years. One way of looking at the Obama regime is it’s just Jimmy Carter’s second term. And yet this is the man that Obama wants you to believe now he’s studying and learning from in order to move forward the next two years to his reelection and beyond. It’s all rhetoric, it’s meaningless, and in many ways it’s offensive. But even this, even this gets to my point here which I’m sure surprise a lot of you by focusing on all this food and vegetable stuff: ‘Government is not the solution; it’s the problem. We’ve been tempted to believe society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, by ourselves. Government by an elite group is superior to government ‘by, for, and of the people.”

Exactly. That’s exactly the thing that I worry about, that too many people think. Well, it’s not a majority anymore. But there are still a lot of people that think some elite bunch of people in Washington know better and can lead us and protect us from ourselves. Even what we eat. And of course the logical rejoinder Reagan had, ‘If no one among us is capable of governing himself,’ which is the left’s mantra: ‘You’re not smart enough to make the decisions to get you through life; you can’t manage your own money well enough,’ then where is this one person that can manage all the rest? And that’s what Obama is, that’s the Anointed One: Finally, someone among us who can tell all the rest of us what to do and how to live.

And that’s how he was positioned and promoted and so forth, and that’s the kind of stuff that scares me, because to me the individual is paramount. It’s human beings, there’s no question about it. The individual is paramount, and the individual is what’s under assault. The individual is being replaced by groups, victims, and elites in Washington making all these ‘important decisions.’ Now, Nile Gardiner: ‘While the British government has embarked on a large-scale austerity program to completely eliminate the nation’s structural deficit by 2015, the Obama administration still remains committed to further stimulus spending in the United States, clinging to the na&iuml;ve and hopeless belief that Big Government solutions are needed to get America’s economy back on its feet.

‘As The Wall Street Journal reports today, President Obama is planning to unveil a series of new spending plans in his State of the Union address on Tuesday in response to Republican calls to cut $2.5 trillion in federal spending over the next decade. The Obama presidency has been trying this high spending approach for the past two years and has spectacularly failed to advance America’s prosperity. Over $800 billion of stimulus spending has failed to create jobs, and has simply added to America’s ballooning $14 trillion national debt, which the Congressional Budget Office predicts could rise to 87 percent of GDP by 2020, 109 percent by 2025, and 185 percent of GDP by 2035…’ this from the ‘non-partisan’ CBO.

‘By adopting this reckless stance, Barack Obama is demonstrating once again how out of touch he is with the views of the American people. A New York Times/ CBS News poll published on Friday revealed that 56 percent of Americans think it is necessary to take immediate action to lower the federal budget deficit, with just 38 percent saying it is possible to wait for better economic times. In addition, 55 percent believe it is necessary to cut back on government programs, as opposed to 39 who are against such cuts. By a margin of 62 percent to 29 percent, American voters support reducing spending rather than raising taxes. …

‘[A] Fox News poll on Friday revealed that ‘almost all American voters think the country’s economy is in bad shape, and few see benefits from the Obama administration’s economic policies,’ with 9 in 10 voters giving the economy negative ratings. In his State of the Union address, President Obama has a major opportunity to outline pro-growth measures that will rein in the deficit, create jobs, and revitalize the economy. This can only be achieved by cutting spending, freeing businesses from red tape, lowering taxes, increasing foreign investment, and advancing free trade. Economic freedom, not more government intervention, is the key to prosperity in the United States.

‘It is doubtful however that the president will seize this moment, and his chief advisers remain wedded to failed Big Government solutions that will only result in a weaker, more indebted nation that will increasingly struggle to compete internationally. By all accounts, his speech on Tuesday could be disastrous not only for America, but also for US leadership on the world stage.’ Again, this is from the UK Telegraph, Nile Gardiner writing on Friday about the upcoming State of the Union show. And from the Washington Examiner on Friday, ‘Voodoo Economics? Tote Up the Jobs from Obama’s Stimulus.’ It appears that the GOP Ways and Means Committee can handle the truth. Hopefully Paul Ryan will lay out the facts after Obama lays out the platitudes tomorrow night.

‘The Ways and Means report provides a number of striking reminders about the predictions the White House made in January 2009 while urging the passage of their $814 billion Keynesian spending bill. By January 2011, the stimulus bill was supposed to have lowered the unemployment rate to 7 percent. It now stands at 9.4 percent, and the report notes that ‘the unemployment rate would be 11.3 percent if it included all the ‘invisible unemployed’ — American workers who have simply given up looking for work.’ The report also claimed that the stimulus would create 3.7 million jobs by now, for a total of 137.6 million jobs in the American economy. Currently, there are 130.7 million jobs. Since passage of the stimulus, 47 of the 50 states have lost jobs; overall, the private sector has seen 1.8 million jobs disappear,’ and the Ways and Means report goes on. It is a basic summary of all of the platitudes and promises in the stimulus bill versus the reality of what has happened.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is E.J. in Boise, Idaho. I’m glad that you waited. You’re next on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Yeah. Listen, I wanted to say you’re living proof that a Harvard education is so overrated.

RUSH: (laughing) Thank you very much.

CALLER: Yeah. Listen, I wanted to say first off that I am praying for Congressman Giffords’ recovery, but, you know, when President Obama announced at the memorial in his campaign voice that Gabby had opened her eyes, I was just wondering if you thought that he would use the State of the Union to announce that Gabby spoke her first words since the shooting and then have the camera pan over to Gabby’s husband sitting next to Jared Loughner’s parents as part of the civility tour?

RUSH: You know I hadn’t taken it out that far, that her husband would be sitting next to Jared Loughner’s parents. I do know that the medical team from the hospital is going to be in the gallery.

CALLER: Oh, okay. Well, I thought that would be so momentous that Chris Matthews would have to strong-arm his own thrilling leg.

RUSH: (laughing) Yes. Well, obviously there’s going to be something tomorrow night. We know the medical team is going to be there, and I have no problem with the medical team being there. On this one the speculation is wide open. Who knows how far. I know that ‘civility’ is gonna be a major part of it, and I know that the word ‘investment’ is going to be frequently used and I do know that Obama is gonna call for bigger government, he’s gonna call for more spending. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he talks about how government and all that was responsible for the quick and very high quality of medical care that everybody got out of Tucson. The thing to remember is that it’s that very system that’s at stake, depending on how far they actually get implementing Obamacare. And the reason it’s at stake is how many people are gonna want to go into the profession? Once government tells you where to live and how much you can make and how much they’re gonna reimburse it’s a scary, scary thing.

But if you don’t want to put up with that, like I told people earlier in the day, nine o’clock at same time there’s The Haney Project with me, and I guarantee you’re not gonna hear investments, you’re not gonna hear any kind of a message on civility or anything of the sort. A much, much better viewing opportunity. This is episode three of The Haney Project with me, ’cause you know on Wednesday we’re gonna — because we have to, it’s our job, man — we’re going to be talking about the State of the Union show. You know you’re gonna be sitting there wringing your hands, you’re gonna be getting angry and testy and irritated at a number of things because you know it’s all gonna be untrue or a lot of it is or misleading. Why put yourselves through that when clearly there’s a much more entertaining option out there, and it’s me, right opposite the president, nine p.m. on the Golf Channel.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: CBS News reporter Mark Knoller has counted Obama’s speeches. This will be number 901 if you count speeches, statements, or remarks he’s issued since taking office. The State of the Union tomorrow night is number 901 — and he is still said by people he’s not getting his message out. Nine hundred one speeches, statements, and remarks.